by Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Sports

by Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Sports

At the U.S. Olympic orientation camp in Arlington, Va., in late August, coach Peter Laviolette seemed genuinely bullish about the Philadelphia Flyers' chances this season.

He talked about how Brayden Schenn would be at another level, how Andrej Meszaros was finally healthy and what an impact Vincent Lecavalier would have. He spent five minutes talking about how well depth defenseman Erik Gustafsson played for Sweden at the world championships.

Laviolette was so optimistic that it convinced me to make them a playoff team in preseason projections. I joked to a colleague that if I had spent another 10 minutes with Laviolette I might have picked them first in the Metropolitan Division. He was confident the team would perform better this season.

Now 42 days later, Laviolette is unemployed, replaced by assistant coach Craig Berube.

The 0-3 start with only three goals scored was the final straw, but Laviolette was fired more for what happened last season than this season.

GM Paul Holmgren wanted to believe that last season's Flyers struggles were an aberration, caused by the lockout and the abbreviated season. But what he witnessed this season convinced him that the Flyers had issues.

The Flyers have skill. They have grit. They hope they have goaltending. They expect their defense to be improved with the addition of Mark Streit. But they have looked flat and uninterested in their first three games.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what's wrong with the Flyers. How do you explain that Claude Giroux, Scott Hartnell, Jakub Voracek, Wayne Simmonds, Sean Couturier and Matt Read all have zero points?

And when there is no obvious reason for a team's struggles, the conclusion is usually to fire the coach. It's almost a rule.

Holmgren called it a "gut decision." It didn't help Laviolette's cause that the Flyers didn't seem to have any spark in the preseason.

It also didn't help that Schenn and Couturier haven't developed as quickly as had been anticipated.

The decision to promote Berube is logical because he is popular with players. The idea is that players will want to play hard for the former Flyers tough guy and former coach of their American Hockey League affiliate. At the very least, this should give the team a short-term lift.

It's also assumed that Berube will have more a defensive emphasis than Laviolette.

Holmgren can now be second-guessed for not firing Laviolette after last season. Clearly, he believed Laviolette deserved another shot to turn it around. Laviolette won a Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, and took Philadelphia to the Stanley Cup Final in 2010. Plus, it seemed reasonable not to read too much into what happened last season when the season started late and many players were out of sync.

But by waiting, Holmgren missed out on the opportunity to consider whether Alain Vigneault, John Tortorella or Lindy Ruff should be the Flyers' new coach

The biggest issue is whether this team has the right mix to be successful long-term.

It seems as if owner Ed Snider or upper management might have the same concern, based on the team's decision last summer to hire Flyers legend Ron Hextall as assistant general manager.

Holmgren is well-liked in the GM community, and many of his friends in the hockey world said, "Uh, oh" when Hextall was hired.

Hextall was an assistant GM with the Los Angeles Kings, and he's on the short list of executives who are overdue to land a GM job soon. He made a lateral move to come back to Philadelphia. Feel free to draw your conclusions on what that means.

But it sure seems that if the Flyers don't rise up under Berube, then Holmgren will be out and Hextall will be in as general manager.